The Smith whom Loved the Stranger
by Tigereyes45
Summary: The Stranger stops by to try and speak with a smith who is too busy with work to pay much attention to them anyways. He just wants to finish his work.


He saw the shadows before he heard the voice. A deep, gravely voice that somehow had both a feminine and masculine tone at the same time. An impressive feat. He would give them that much, but he had been at his work for a long time. Long enough to not jump at the sight of shadows creepy into his den.

"Smith, do you know who I am?" The presence asks covered within shadows. It rounds the Smith's anvil to stand in front of him. Leaving his light source behind. The smith could still make out the light of his fire from just beyond the stranger, but not enough to make out it's features. Yet he already knew this form of its.

It has no discernible facial features. Just an empty mound that is suppose to represent a head. There to add familiarity to the souls it gathers. It hands were long and thinly. He knew that if one of those touched him it would feel like smooth leather rubbing against his skin. Shadows were what it wears and shadows were what it was. He knew the prayers, the rumors, the legends, and myths. He knew how these gods enjoyed playing their games for they had played them so long. So he refused to play the stranger's and instead returns to his hard work. Even with little light he could finish making the shield he was hammering on. Of course the spectral grows impatient and throws a gust of wind through his wide open home. It sends chills through his bones, but still the smith continues to work.

"Do you not remember, Smith?" Now it voice sounded more familiar yet still so distant.

"Of course I do." The Smith admits with a heavy sigh. "I could never forget you, but this, your life is one of loss. Eventually you'll take away everything I create." He attempts to explain why he chose what he did. He had too. If he had left with them then everything he ever creates would disappear before his very eyes. All of his weapons, armor, his very life's work. Still there was still something there. A yearning for something, anything more between them then what there was right now.

"Do you no longer care?" There it was. Her voice. The stranger can take on many different forms and use all the voices of the world. Rarely did it ever use that voice for it was one of the few closest to the stranger's heart, and the only one that could break through all of the walls to the Smith's.

"I will always care. The problem is I care too much. What we did to those two. What we use to be back then, it all overwhelms me. All because it stirs feelings within me that I know should not be there. Listen to me carefully when I say these words. I do not think I will ever be able to move on to stop caring, but that is a problem within itself. We were always meant to be pulled apart and you knew that. You knew and didn't tell me."

"You left me. Abandon me. Yet you dare say,"

The smith raises his hands to stop the stranger's words. It works but it wouldn't hold back the Stranger's words for long. The thought that he was far too use to their presence crosses his mind again.

"I love you." The smith admits as he lowers his callous hands. "I always will, but there is a danger to us. Of us being together. Back then it was find, but not that we've returned we can no longer focus on what was lost."

"You forget who I am." The Stranger accuses the mould of a face forming eyes upon it. Dark grey eyes with wisps of black swirls dancing around within them. Eyes he use to care so much about protecting. Eyes he still feels so much about.

"Please." He begs. "Stop this and leave. I have much work to do, and many prayers to answer. We all are not as turned on as you are." He knows his words with hurt them. The stranger and one of the souls within. A soul he use to walk with, play with, protect. A soul that was so powerful that when the Stranger came to possess it the soul overwhelmed the god, and the forever loyal soldier of the Stranger became the Stranger. Just as he had come to embody the smith. A form that was familiar and comfortable, but not really what he wanted.

"If that is how you wish to be then I will leave, but remember this, Smith, you left me first. Both times you left me first, and I am done trying to move past that." The Stranger calls out as their form fades away into a long black cloak that flies away.

He is left there with his thoughts. "I don't think you ever had." He whispers to the fading form before finishing his work. Looking at the shield the smith considers it thoughtfully. The blue strips along the edges reminds him of rivers in the real world. Rivers filled with fish that were loyal to each other before anyone else. Rivers that ran red with blood and the cries of a lone wolf in mourning. The center had a large weirwood tree that recalls times of joy. He recalls a wedding within the weirwood forest. Cloaks interchanging as distant long gone voices cheer. He can not recall any faces or names. None 'cept for hers. The girl who had been in front of him.

The green surrounding the silver tree was contained within an enclosed space by the blue rivers of the shield. She had been green. Green at life, green in battle, green in her soul. She had been the woods they played in. The acorns she had adorned on that dress. She was the light that gave his bleak life a little more meaning, and then she was gone. Then so was he. On the trunk of the tree he carves a name. It was then that he knows he will never cast aside this shield or ever give it away. The name was the name of a lady-wolf who never claimed a lady's title. The same she-wolf that had taught him just as much about himself as he had learned about her. The song of metal and steel within his head is replaced by one of love and loss in a forest. The one he heard sang when he first fell in love with her. Always he remembered her name, even when he forgot his own.

"Farewell sweet stranger." He whispers closing his eyes for a rest.

* * *

 ** _After Gendry and Arya pass on fro their human lives they become the gods who traits they embodied while alive._**


End file.
